Result = to 0 says false

[Becky]

I am pulling my hair out at this point and need some help.

I have a worksheet with many cells and calculations.
I have calculations performing on results of a calculation. In then end of
all of this I have a If statement that says IF(Y4=0,"Yes","No")
In the function argument box it says that Y4 is false and the result inthat
cell is 0.
So it is telling me that 0 is not equal to 0.

I don't get it. This was a sheet I got from an end user and at first I
thought it was her formatting so I copied the contents and pasted the values
and did the calculations my self. Still same result. Then I started the
whole sheet over from scratch and still same result.

If this is not clear I can post the cells and their contents. Just let me
know what you need.

 

[kassie]

FALSE = 0, Becky

Not knowing the formulae used, and how it ends up with FALSE, I cannot
really assist you. Suggest youd repost, and give more specific information.
Of particular interest would be the formula that resuls in FALSE.

 

[Biff]

The result of Y4 might not be exactly 0 but Excel "fudges" it to be 0. Try
this:

Format cell Y4 as NUMBER and set it to 15 decimal places. Do you get exactly
0.000000000000000 or do you get something like this: 0.000000000721000

Biff

 

[Biff]

May have overlooked the obvious first thing to check!

Are you sure the zero is a numeric 0 and not a TEXT 0?

=IF(Y4="0","Yes","No")

If that formula returns Yes then the 0 in Y4 is TEXT.

Biff

 

[Anthony D]

Hi Becky,

I wonder, if it is possible that there is a mathematical operator involved
with the cells that appear to be false (0) ?
For example, the entry +false results in false, which is treated as non-zero
by the statement if(y4=0,"yes","no").
However, -false (and --false) results in 0. Copying these and doing a paste
special, values, results in 0

HTH
Anthony

 

[lk]

Excel keeps 15 places of precision. Depending on your data, try to set your
formula to look at + or - one more place of precision than expected.

For example, I use a formula like: =IF(ABS(A1)<.001,"true","false") when
working with data that is has 2 places of precision (like dollar amounts).

LK